Saturday, June 25, 2005

Three San Francisco medicinal marijuana clubs raided by federal agents were being used as fronts for a major drug trafficking operation, Federal drug enforcement authorities alleged Thursday.

Their probe, they insisted, was about dismantling a large-scale operation that allegedly was using cannabis clubs as a cover as it grew and distributed thousands of pounds of marijuana throughout the Bay Area. The affidavit describes a network of associates who hid behind ``nominee owners'' of cannabis clubs. The majority of the profits came not from medicinal marijuana sales, but from street sales. One of the men arrested, San Francisco resident Enrique Chan, 26, allegedly told an undercover agent he planned to use the clubs as a defense if arrested.